Alabama Officials Respond to ‘False’ Ad Discovery in Senate Race

An ad produced by a mysterious super PAC supporting Democrat Alabama senate candidate Doug Jones over Republican Roy Moore was pulled from television and online on Thursday after the Alabama Secretary of State determined it to contain false information.

As reported by The Western Journal, the ad titled “child predator” by the Highway 31 PAC warned Alabamians their vote in the upcoming U.S. Senate special election on Dec. 12 would be a matter of “public record.”

“If you don’t vote, and Roy Moore — a child predator — wins, could you live with that? Your vote is public record and your community will know whether or not you helped stop Roy Moore,” a female narrator says.

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Moore has been accused by two women of engaging in sexual misconduct in the 1970s, when they were in their teens and Moore was in his early 30s. Moore has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Secretary of State John Merrill received several complaints about the ad and contacted Highway 31 to discuss “the misrepresentations presented in this political commercial,” according to the Birmingham News.

Highway 31 refused to change the ad, so Merrill’s team interfaced with the advertising team at Google, the owner of YouTube.

“(T)hrough several intense discussions and many references to Alabama State Law the team at Google felt the ad should be ‘disapproved’ and that it was in violation of the AdWords advertising policies,” Merrill said in a statement Wednesday night.

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Additionally, the Moore campaign reported in a release on Thursday that “two (television) stations have pulled the ad, and others are expected to follow suit.”

Moore campaign spokesman Ben DuPre said was Highway 31 was really engaging in was “voter intimidation” by falsely representing their vote was a matter of “public record.”

According to the Daily Beast, Highway 31 has spent almost $2 million on ads during the Senate race, “making it the single largest independent spender of the general-election contest.”

The group has not disclosed who is financing the push against Moore.

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The ad expenditures are reportedly being listed as debts against the PAC.

“This is wild,” said Brendan Fischer, the director of FEC and federal reform programs at the Campaign Legal Center, an ethics watchdog group. “This looks like a blatant effort to dodge disclosure requirements. And it could have the effect of keeping voters in the dark about who is funding these ads until after Election Day.”

“I suspect that the vendors who created these ads will wait to invoice the campaign for a few weeks. And then, after Election Day has passed, some megadonor will drop a few million into the Highway 31 super PAC and pay off its debts,” he added.

Fischer went on to note that the strategy appears to be “a shady scheme to deprive voters of information about who is trying to influence them.”

It then states that Moore, while serving as Alabama chief justice, dissented in cases involving men found guilty in the abuse or rape of underage girls.

Politifact noted that Moore never dissented against the convictions themselves, but raised legal process and evidentiary issues.

“An ad from the Jones campaign said that Moore disagreed and dissented in a case involving the abuse of two underage girls,” the fact checker explained. “There is no question that Moore dissented, but the ad provides no context for what Moore disagreed with. The glaring lack of detail leaves reasonable viewers with the impression that Moore disagreed with the conviction.”

“That’s not what he said. He disagreed with the court’s decision not to consider a legal question of admissible evidence,” Politifact continued. “Several independent law professors told us that Moore raised a valid point that was legally separate from the underlying conviction in the case. The ad leaves out critical context that gives a highly misleading impression.”